11/15/23
7,
ISSUE
2
NUEVA CURRENT Photo by Simone Summers
THE
VOLUME
NEWS
Photo by Damian Marhefka
The Innovative Learning Conference (ILC) has returned after a four-year hiatus, welcoming a decorated lineup from the co-founder of Instagram to the Provost of Stanford. [ P 5 ]
When free speech carries a cost As free speech on college campuses becomes a contentious subject, community members examine civil discourse at Nueva
A R T S & C U LT U R E Donning pearls, top hats, and lavish gowns, the cast of the fall play brings Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility to campus.
Photos and Illustration by Kayla L.
Photo by Dejavu Group
[P7 ]
F E AT U R E S Joshua K. '24 takes to the mic under the stage name DreamR. Read more about his journey in the music industry and his most recent single “Fairytale.” [ P 12 ]
Art by Anwen C.
By Ellie K. & Aaron H.
OPINION
Photo from Yahoo SPorts
Two student perspectives on the whether or not schools should release statements in response to or in the wake of major crises. [ P 11 ]
SPORTS The 49ers are on a roll—garnering new records in the face of injury. Here's our recap and breakdown of the season so far. [ P 20 ]
I. WHEN WORDS FAIL When Maya Bodnick ’22 first saw the billboard truck on Oct. 13, she was terrified. Enlarged pictures and names of her peers were being paraded around campus on all sides of the truck, with the caption “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The campaign to dox—to publicly release personal and identifying information about someone with malicious intent— Harvard students made national headlines. The targets were alleged signers of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) statement blaming “Israel entirely for the war in Gaza.” Bodnick, a Jewish sophomore at Harvard, wrote an Op-Ed the next day for independent Jewish news organization Forward, condemning both the PSC’s statement and the doxxing. “The trucks, the online doxxing campaign, and the [New York] Post cover function as billboards for hate, encouraging violence against these students,” Bodnick wrote in the Op-Ed. “These doxxing attacks have not only endangered the students whose organizations signed the letter, but also have created immense fear and danger for the whole Harvard Muslim community.” Despite denouncing the statement and
larger doxxing campaigns, Bodnick believes in the preservation of freedom of speech. “But even though I strongly disagree with the PSC statement, I still believe that all students have the right to freedom of speech and—more importantly—to feel safe on campus,” she wrote. “Free speech matters because it is a fundamental pillar of our American democracy. If we silence ideas that we disagree with, we risk slipping into authoritarian censorship.” While Bodnick’s Op-Ed focused primarily on the situation at Harvard, she believes the situation is representative of a broader issue at higher educational institutions nationwide. “Harvard has a civil discourse problem, but it’s not unique,” she said in an interview. “It's emblematic of modern polarization.” These civil discourse problems have manifested themselves in various forms at universities across the country. At Northwestern University, fake issues of the student newspaper The Daily Northwestern were distributed across their campus with the headline, “Northwestern complicit in genocide of Palestinians.” At Tulane University, two students were assaulted in a brawl when someone attempted to burn an Israeli flag during a pro-Palestine rally. The events following the Israel-Hamas conflict are not the first time ideology-based animosity has arisen on college campuses. In March, conservative judge Stuart Kyle
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Duncan was invited to speak at Stanford Law School by the Federalist Society, a student group focused on the current state of the legal order. Duncan was shouted down by protesters and chastised by Stanford’s Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, sparking a national debate around freedom of speech on college campuses. Last year, distinguished universities like Emerson, Georgetown, Stanford, the University of Florida, and the University of North Carolina were ranked the worst for free speech in America by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The placement of these highly regarded universities on the rankings prompts a question: how can these schools prepare students to become positive members of society if their campus suppresses free speech? The polarization on campuses follows the rise of polarization nationally. Americans are becoming further entrenched in their political and ideological opinions, leading to larger, more extreme reactions. This phenomenon can be seen in Republicans ousting their party’s Speaker of the House and the subsequent challenges in finding a replacement; the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building in 2021; and even social media’s cancel culture. [ CONTINUED ON P 10 ]
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